Boys Without Names

147 Pages·2015·0.88 MB·English

by  Kashmira Sheth

Kashmira Sheth
Boys without Names
For my uncle and aunt,
Rohit and Susan Trivedi
Contents
One
“We stay, we starve,” my father says. Baba’s tone is…
Two
When I return home everyone is waiting for me. Sita…
Three
It is still dark when I wake up and look…
Four
We have second-class tickets, the cheapest fare. Aai boards the…
Five
Slowly the platform begins to drain of people and Baba…
Six
“What happened, Gopal?” Baba asks.
Seven
It is hard to have a footpath as your home…
Eight
By the time I wake up in the morning our…
Nine
Two days ago five of us arrived from our village.
Ten
In the morning, I want to find out if Jama…
Eleven
When I wake up, a man with a crescent scar…
Twelve
From where I sit, I can’t see the street, but…
Thirteen
The day starts with a quick trip to the bathroom…
Fourteen
I have been here for a week and Scar has…
Fifteen
During the next few days I put all my energy…
Sixteen
One night I have a brilliant idea. If somehow I…
Seventeen
Night Chatterer cries and whines in his sleep. Clearly, he…
Eighteen
I lie awake thinking about Jama’s street, the bridge, and…
Nineteen
It is hard to believe three more weeks have gone…
Twenty
Because GC and I fought, again there are no more…
Twenty-One
In the daylight I stare at the nimba trunk with…
Twenty-Two
The monsoon seems to have tapered off with soft rain,…
Twenty-Three
Over the next few days, I give Sahil the pills…
Twenty-Four
As soon as Scar comes in the morning, he claps…
Twenty-Five
With each passing day the air turns lighter and the…
Twenty-Six
The next morning, on Kali Chaudash, Scar arrives early. We’re up…
Twenty-Seven
The day of Diwali comes and goes without Scar, policemen,…
Twenty-Eight
The inspector takes my friends in his car and one…

Name Guide
Glossary
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by Kashmira Sheth
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
one
“We stay, we starve,” my father says. Baba’s tone is as firm as my grip on my mother, Aai’s, wrist.
“Baba, you want us to move to Mumbai?” I ask. I feel giddy with excitement and fright, as if I’ve
climbed to the very top of a coconut tree.
“Yes, Gopal.”
Aai’s forehead wrinkles, making lines in her large red bindi. “We can’t leave our desh, the land of
our forefathers,” she whispers.
I feel the opposite pulls of Aai’s worry about moving and Baba’s fear of staying.
I envy the twins, Sita and Naren, who are outside with their friends without a care in the world.
They’re just six years old and too young to understand everything. I’m eleven, and for the last three
years Baba and Aai have told me about our troubles.
Baba rolls his eyes. “In the village all we will have is this mud-wall and palm-frond-roof home. In
the city—” His eyes rest on Aai’s round face, and his expression softens. “We have lost our farm and
we will never get it back. There’s so much work available in the city and it pays well,” he pleads.
“We won’t go hungry there.”
Aai turns away from Baba and nervously wraps the end of her sari around one finger. “It will be so
lonely without our family and friends.”
I’ve never seen Aai so scared. I put my arm around her. “Don’t worry, we will all be together.”
She shakes her head.
“The city is filled with people.” Baba’s impatience sharpens. “Surely we will become friends with
some of them.” He takes a deep breath. “If it weren’t for the moneylender, I’d go by myself to
Mumbai, but I can’t leave you behind. He will come after you.”
Baba turns around and looks out the window. Aai is silent.
Baba is right. If he left, the moneylender would harass Aai and might force me to work for him.
Besides, Aai, Naren, Sita, and I would miss Baba so much. It is better for us to go together.
Unlike Aai, I don’t think of Mumbai as a monster, and I am not afraid to go there. One of my
friends, Mohan, visited the city last year. He says that the city is the home of film stars, cloud-
reaching buildings, markets that are bigger than our village, mirror-shiny cars, double-decker buses,
and dozens of languages. It would be so exciting to see all the things that are in the store windows, to
watch people, and to learn different tongues. He even taught me a couple of new words they use in the
city. One is khajoor, which means stupid, and other is bindaas, which means carefree.
Like many other villagers, we have lost our land and can’t grow crops. But there are no other jobs
in the village as there are in the cities. And we’re poor. As poor as the pipul tree is bare in the
autumn. In the past few months, the hunger has settled permanently in our stomachs.
When we still had our land, we grew bajra and onions on it. I love bajra bread with freshly dug
onions dipped in salt and pepper. When Aai made spinach and potatoes or spicy fish with rice, we
had a feast. And there was always something growing around the woods, like the sweet gorus-
chinch, mangoes, or guavas I picked.
Baba always worked hard and paid the bills on time, but it all changed in the year of good rain two
monsoons ago, when everyone had a bumper crop of onions. The price of onions tumbled, and Baba
couldn’t pay back the money he had borrowed to buy seeds and fertilizer. Last year, besides working
on the farm, Baba worked at a quarry splitting stones, and Aai carried luggage for tourists at the
nearby hill station of Matheran. But after we paid the interest on our debt, there was barely enough
left to keep five bellies from growling.
Then Naren came down with a cold. Aai had to stay home to look after him. For a week she gave
him warm milk with turmeric and tea with ginger, but his cold turned into a nasty cough and high
fever, and we had to take him to a doctor. The doctor’s visit and the medicine were expensive. The
pills were each a quarter of the size of a gorus-chinch seed, but they cost Baba almost one month’s
income. We had to borrow more money. At the end of last year, Baba sold the farm to pay the lender.
We all cried the day we sold our farm—even Baba did. He didn’t speak a word for a week. And
yet, selling the land has done no good because the debt keeps multiplying. And now there is no farm
to feed us. The debt is like hunger in our bellies. The interest we pay is like the food we eat—just
enough to get by. The debt and hunger never leave.
Baba moves away from the window and breaks the silence. He stands in front of Aai. “I will find
work as soon as we get there. You can do the same. Think of our children. Do you want them to rot
here?”
“But our village, our—”
He cuts her off. “With or without us, the village will still be here.”
“We will visit,” I say.
Aai twists the end of her sari around her finger tightly. “It might take a long time.”
Baba rolls his eyes and points to the ground. “Why do you want to come back, anyway? There is
nothing here but lumpy soil and clumpy roots! Even when the harvest is good, it harms us. Mumbai is
the place for us. They call it maha nagari, grand city, for a reason.”
Does Baba never want to return to the village? I ball up my hands in fists at his words to hide my
sadness and anger.
“Don’t forget, it is called mayavati nagari, make-believe city, too,” Aai says.
Baba paces back and forth in our small mud-walled home. In one corner is our kitchen with the
wood-burning clay stove, pots, and dishes. In another corner, we keep our sets of clothes folded
neatly in a stack on top of a cardboard box. We sleep in the far corner, where our blankets are piled.
I see Baba’s hands, clasped together behind his back. They are raw, red, and scabby. His hands
were rough but healthy when he only worked on the farm. But the hard work of splitting stones in the
quarry has given him a hunched back and worn-out fingers.
He puts a blistered palm on my shoulder. “Sit down.”
I let go of Aai’s hand and sit on a mat on the floor. She sits next to me.
Baba kneels down. “Listen, both of you.”
The mat is unraveling at the edges and I pick a thread and tug it. It frays a bit more.
Baba holds Aai’s gaze. “As long as we stay here, there’s no way we can pay our debt. I want to get
out of here.”
“Without paying?” Aai’s voice is shrill.
“We’ve been paying off our debt for almost two years, and yet we owe more than ever. When I
saw the moneylender last time he said, ‘Bring your son with you. He can work and help you pay off
the debt.’ Do you know what that means? He will have Gopal by the throat for who knows how long.
Gopal is smart, and we must send him to school so he has a future. I don’t want my son’s lungs filled
with dust and his life to be wasted like that. I won’t allow it.”
Now I know why Baba’s breathing is so labored at night, heavy and gasping.
“Baba, but how—”
“It is shameful and wrong to go without paying the money we have borrowed, but we have paid the
moneylender many times over. If we stay here he will own us. I see no other way out.” Baba stares at
the floor.
A tear rolls down Aai’s cheek.
Baba wipes it away with a fingertip.
Aai reaches to me and before I know it, I am enveloped in the folds of her sari. It has gone through
many washes and is soft and smells of Aai. She extends her other hand to Baba. “If there is no other
way then we will go. But I will miss…” A sob soaks the rest of her sentence. Baba and I hold her
tight.
“When do we leave, Baba?” I ask.
“Tomorrow, before the sunrise, quickly and quietly. And don’t tell a soul.”
Aai’s eyes are wide. “So soon? We don’t have money to buy the tickets for Mumbai.”
“We do.”
Aai and I look at each other. We know who gave Baba the money.
Only a few weeks ago, Jama, Aai’s brother, showed up wearing new clothes, shiny leather sandals,
and a wristwatch. He brought a blue marble with white and navy swirls for Naren and a red plastic
hair clip for Sita. Then Jama slipped his hands in his cotton bag and pulled out a notebook and a slim
pencil for me. On the cover of the notebook in gold letters SHREE TOOLS, INC. was printed. “That is
where I work,” Jama said.
That evening he tried to convince Aai and Baba to move, saying, “I work hard in Mumbai, but I
don’t have to toil until my bones ache. Besides, the children will get a much better education there.
You can stay with me.”
Baba wanted to go, but Aai refused. Later Baba and Jama must have talked alone and made plans.
“Did Jama give you the fare money?” I ask Baba to make sure.
“Yes.”
“How will we find his home?”
Baba takes out a piece of paper from his pocket and hands it to me. “Gopal, this is Jama’s address.
He told me if we get off at Dadar it is a short walk from there. Any of the shopkeepers will help us.”

Aai starts to make roti for our trip while Baba goes to the market for jute sacks. I sit cross-legged in
front of Aai to tell her I feel as sad as she about leaving my friends and our village. I want to promise
her I will study, work hard, and bring her back for a visit, but before I open my mouth, Sita and Naren
saunter in.
“What are you making, Aai?” Naren asks.
Sita rolls her eyes. She has picked that up from Baba. “Can’t you tell it is roti?” When she comes
closer her eyes widen with surprise. “So many!”
My chance to talk to Aai is ruined, because I don’t want the twins to find out we are leaving. They
will run out and tell their friends. I get up to leave. “Mi jato,” I tell Aai as I grab the notebook Jama
gave me.
“Sambhalun ja!”
Aai tells me to be careful, which means she knows I’m going to my favorite spot. “Ho,” I reply.
“Where are you going? Can we come?” Naren shouts. But I am out the door and don’t look back.
Without thinking, I start walking toward the homes of my friends, Mohan and Shiva. I do want to
talk to them one last time before we leave, but Baba said not to tell a soul about our move. Can I do
that? Once I speak to Mohan and Shiva, they will know from my voice that I am hiding something. If
they ask me questions, I won’t be able to keep our secret. It is better to avoid them.
I turn around and walk in the opposite direction to the edge of the pond. I stop by the gorus-chinch
tree. There are some fruits left, so I pick a handful of pods and settle on the limb of a nearby nimba
tree that arches over the pond.
The light shines through the leaves onto my notebook. The shadowy sunshine is cool and I have a
view of the world through curtains of lacy leaves, but the world can’t see me.
Aai thinks it is dangerous to sit on a branch above the water, but I can’t stay away from it. Sitting
here, I used to dream of being a king, a pirate, a pilot, a cricket player, and even a magician. Every
year when branches were crowded with small, white, fragrant flowers, I would pretend to be the
Mogul king Akbar sitting in my garden that extended all the way beyond the pond and into the woods.
I haven’t dreamed like that in a long, long time. Now I come here to think about how to get rid of our
troubles, to get away from Naren and Sita, to write in my notebook about my plans, and to watch the
birds, trees, and pond.
Today, swollen green beads of nimba fruits have replaced the flowers; in a couple of months they
will be bigger and ripe.
I open my notebook on my lap and flip pages. On one page I have written, What can I be today? An
innocent man who is ordered never to return to his land and sneaks back in disguised as a
magician? Underneath is a picture of a bearded magician, dressed in flowing robe. Even though it is
a pencil drawing I know the beard is silver and the robe is red.
I turn the page. There’s a story about a boy who loves stories and opens up a bookstore so he can
read all the books he wants to. The store is small but the line of customers extends all the way out into
the street.
Suddenly, a flock of parrots fly above the pond, making a ruckus.
I realize I have not written a single story about my village, friends, and neighbors—about my life—
so I hold my pencil between my thumb and middle finger and find a blank page. Furiously, I write. I
describe not only the trees, pond, and birds, but also the clumpy soil, the fluffy clouds moseying
along, and the meandering path into the woods. I draw Mohan with his crooked smile and Shiva
throwing a stone, because his stones always traveled farther than mine.
On another page I write how one day walking home from school, I fell and skinned my knee. I was
six years old and started to cry. Mohan stayed with me and Shiva ran ahead to tell Aai. She came
rushing and carried me home. I scribble about Mohan’s and Shiva’s families, our school, and my
teacher, Mr. Advale, who thinks I am smart, and about the horses and the tourists I have met in the
summer. I write about all the fun Mohan, Shiva, and I had even though we worked all day carrying
luggage for the tourists. As we climbed the Matheran Hill the sun floated up from a misty horizon like
a red balloon. Sometimes we rode horses, and we always chased monkeys. When we watched a swift
flutter its wings, take off from a hill, and soar above us, it made us happy.
I hope next summer maybe Aai, the twins, and I can come back to the village. Then, like the last
two years, Mohan, Shiva, and I can work in Matheran together. I know that unless we pay off our debt
we can’t return. Once more, sadness washes over me.
When I look up I realize more time has gone by than I thought, and I have a kink in my neck.
There is so much more to write and there is no way I can put it all down. Frantically, I write some
more. I won’t be here to eat the fleshy yellow fruit of the nimba. Will they have gorus-chinch in
Mumbai? I will miss these trees, leaves, pond, sounds, soil. Tears trickle down my cheeks.
I wish I had a camera like the tourists in Matheran. I would take pictures of the nimba tree, our
home, Mohan and Shiva, and the hills that surround our village. I wish I had colors and brushes; I
would paint the forest, the pond, and birds.
Unlike regular chinch, which is sour and strong, gorus-chinch is sweet and mild. I bite the pink
pods and suck on the fleshy part until I am down to the pebbly seed. I spit it out. It plops in the water,
sending up a tiny spray. Soon, the water in the pond stills.
As I eat the last gorus-chinch my heart feels the same as my mouth, sour and sweet at the thought of
leaving our village. School has just started, and my friends will wonder where I am.
I have sat on the nimba branch for a long time, and the evening has fallen softly between the
branches. The chirping of the birds has vanished, but the light of the moon shines through the leaves of
the nimba. Even though I want to write more, it is time to go home. I close my notebook and sit for a
few more seconds. When I climb down I go as slowly as I can because this is the last time I will do
that. I want the bark to imprint on my palms just as it has imprinted on my heart.
The pond shimmers with moonlight. I look up. The sky is clear and the stars are packed together
like people crowded in the temple courtyard at festival time.
I stand at the edge of the pond sucking on the last black seed of gorus-chinch. I’m ashamed that we
have to leave in secrecy, without paying off our debt. It is not right. Baba knows that too. But he
doesn’t want me to split stones in the quarry like he does. I don’t either. In Mumbai, I can get a good
job after high school and won’t have to starve.
Still, not paying the debt bothers me. The interest may be high, but we did borrow money and we
must repay it. It is Baba’s debt, but if I do well in the city, I will return the money with interest. That
is the only right thing to do.
The bright moon lights the path. I take the long way back, passing the homes of my friends, Mohan
and Shiva. Even though Baba didn’t want me to, maybe I should see them and say good-bye.
I think of Shiva’s baba, who killed himself last year because he couldn’t pay his debt. Like Baba,
he was an onion farmer. If we stayed, Baba might do the same. The thought of life without Baba sends
shivers through my heart. We must go. Someday we will return to the village and I will see my friends
again.
I keep on walking.